First of all, I'm Korean, and we don't have a middle name.
Except for a very few odd cases, our names are composed of one letter surname, and two letters first name.
For example, former UN secretary general was Korean, and his name is
Ban (family name), and Ki-Moon (first name)
I don't know how he presented himself in initialized form, but would it be possible for me to present myself in documents (such as in academic references) like this:
Ban, K.M.
or would that kind of initials only apply to middle names, and would therefore mislead people to thinking that I have a middle name?
Best Answer
It's up to the particular style that you use, but the hyphenation will be preserved in some way so as to avoid the confusion that you indicate:
I believe that the first example is the most common in terms of punctuation.
I have yet to see a style guide recommend dropping the hyphenated part altogether ("Ban, K.") or keeping the hyphen but removing the second initial ("Ban, K-.").
Note that this applies equally to similarly hyphenated English names (for example, "Ann-Marie") and is not just about the translation from one language to another. If the translation includes a hyphen, then the hyphenation styles apply.